DEVILS LAKE — For the first time ever, Devils Lake JV is the champion of the Ramsey County Boys’ Basketball Tournament.
The Firebirds (5-2) avenged their loss in the title game from last year, taking down Carrington (5-3) by a score of 69-51 at the Devils Lake Sports Center on Saturday afternoon. The Cardinals are a Region 2 foe of the Devils Lake varsity team.
“It’s awesome to win it for the kids,” Devils Lake JV head coach Patrick Thomas said. “It’s a really good achievement for them because they’ve been working really hard.”
Bryar Exner broke out with 23 points to lead the Firebirds. Max Palmer scored 22. Ben Brodina, the star of the first two games, was limited to five points. But six Firebirds got in the scoring column and came together for a collective effort to take care of business.
Brodina and Palmer were both named to the all-tournament team after the game. Carrington’s Josh Bickett was declared the tournament MVP. Also on the all-tournament team were North Star’s Hunter Hagler and Warwick’s Elijah Feather Jr. and Anthony Touche. Hagler won the free throw contest held on the first day of the tournament.
Brodina committed a foul six seconds in, and Carrington made both free throws to go up 2-0 right away. It was Kade Fee who scored Devils Lake’s first basket.
But Carrington had the next five points, putting the Firebirds in a 7-2 hole. Brodina missed two different three-point attempts, and Palmer also missed a triple. The shots that were landing in Devils Lake’s first two games of the tournament weren’t converting.
“Always tell them, ‘Don’t stop shooting. If you’ve got an open one, shoot it. Knock it down,’” Thomas said. “So that’s what we kept doing. And they’ll eventually start dropping.”
Exner grabbed a defensive rebound and ran it all the way into the bucket himself to get Devils Lake going. Carrington missed a layup and Fee got the rebound, but Brodina missed another three. The Cardinals missed their own wide-open three, and Brodina got the ball and found the lane to cap a 6-0 run.
Devils Lake was on top for the first time, 8-7.
Carrington briefly jolted back ahead on a made three, but buckets from Exner and Palmer put the Firebirds up 12-10. Palmer swished a three to make it 15-11, but Carrington found the rim twice to tie it back up, 15-15, at the end of the first quarter.
Exner scored Devils Lake’s first six points of the second quarter. Another Carrington three made it 19-18, but Exner single-handedly kept the Firebirds ahead 21-18.
The Cardinals had a three-point play, though, making an and-one to tie it up once again. Free throws by Will Heilman put Devils Lake up by two, but a turnover led to another and-one and a 5-0 run for Carrington. Exner missed a layup and the Cardinals got back down the floor quickly to make it 26-23 in their favor.
But Palmer landed a long three, making Devils Lake’s first triple of the afternoon to tie it up at 26. Talan Gregory scored four points off the bench, fueling an 8-0 Firebirds run. Devils Lake held onto a 33-28 lead at halftime. That was despite only two points from Brodina.
Carrington trimmed the lead as tight as three points but never came all the way back again. Exner, who had been relatively quiet in the points column in the tournament thus far, landed a three and had six points in the third quarter. Brodina also found the rim again with a three-point play. Palmer connected on his third triple to give him one in each of the first three quarters.
And after an Exner put-back, Devils Lake led 52-43 to cap the third quarter.
Exner carried that into the fourth quarter, putting up seven more to get into the 20s. He was a consistently pesky presence on the boards.
“We expect a lot out of him,” Thomas said. “Physically, rebounding, everything. And then he stepped up offensively tonight; that’s what we expect from him. He’s a dog down there. We put a lot on him as well, and he delivered tonight.”
Exner played hero in what was an off-day for Brodina but a strong overall team effort. Heilman finished with eight points, while Gregory had six off the bench. Fee had five to match Brodina.
“We had other guys attack,” Thomas said. “And I thought we had good mismatches down low with Kade and Bryar being a little bit quicker. So we want to take advantage of that. And those guys stepped up and scored.”
The Firebirds displayed a solid young group that should fill in nicely for the varsity team in the coming years.
“A lot more younger guys this year, so it’s good experience for them. That’s a Class A team we just played,” Thomas said. “It hopefully gives those guys good experience, so that way they’re ready to play some varsity in the future.”
